


The Emptiness of Space and Keith

by theotpeffect



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Depressed Keith, Depression, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, One Shot, more or less?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-29
Updated: 2016-12-29
Packaged: 2018-09-13 01:02:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9098989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theotpeffect/pseuds/theotpeffect
Summary: Keith always struggled with his own feelings of crippling inadequacy and uselessness and his brain has called for another depressive relapse because of them and Lance just wants to know what's wrong so he can help this boy he cares so much for.





	

**Author's Note:**

> For [freckledlance's](http://freckledlance.tumblr.com) birthday that was an eternity ago. It's been a long time coming but I hope you enjoy it!

The book in his hands felt heavy. Lifting it closer to his face seemed an impossibility when every time he tried to move it, it seemed to drag his hands down with all the gravity of the ship. The blankets on his legs felt heavy too. There were two of them, thick and comfortable. They seemed new, lacking the threadbare, breezy feeling of his blankets on Earth. They smelled good too. It was an unearthly scent, one of spice and flora, but not unpleasant. He brought the blanket to his nose and sniffed. He closed his eyes and stayed like that for a minute before mustering the energy to reach for his book again. It had tumbled from his chest down to his lap, pressing against his thighs. A few pages had collapsed under the weight of it, crinkled and bent. Keith felt a spike of irritation at seeing his undamaged book suddenly ruined.

                He smoothed out the pages before flipping through it again, looking for the part where he had left off. A page number tickled at the back of his mind. But he couldn’t quite remember if the order was correct. The number of pages in his left hand felt heavier than before. He read the words in front of them, but he couldn’t focus for more than a few moments before his eyes seemed to forget their purpose. They would wander to his blankets or simply unfocus from the page, leaving a blur in front of him.

                Keith sighed. He placed the book down at the side of his bed and reached for another he had abandoned some time ago. He glanced at the clock on his bedside, its blue letters dimmed by the dull light of the lamp by its side. It had been a few hours since he had started the other book.

                He had only read about a chapter. But he couldn’t recall what he had read, not really. It seemed hazy, as if he had left the book months before.

                He opened the new one to a random page. He couldn’t remember where he had left off. He read. A few sentences seemed familiar to him, so he continued, figuring he’d find where he’d left off eventually.

                He flipped the page. He flipped the page. He flipped the page.

                Nothing was sticking. He huffed in annoyance and slammed the book closed before flopping back onto his bed. He let the book fall from his loose grasp onto the floor below. It was not large, and the paper cover was not one easily damaged. The thud against the cold, marble floor of the Castle was not one that worried him, a usual protector of any of his few belongings.

                He wrapped the blankets around him, until nothing but half his face remained poking out of their enclosure. He was warm. Comfortable. He felt as if he were lying on a cloud, high in the stars. His heavy eyelids drooped down until they were shut. He felt himself succumbing to that craved unconsciousness. He hadn’t left his bed that day, not really. He had eaten with the others, and he was sure he had spoken to them. He remembered feeling exhausted as soon as it had become his turn to speak, only wanting sleep and to return to his room. But that could have been yesterday too, or the day before. It felt the same to him -- like the haze of a dream.

                He burrowed further into his blankets and ignored the throbbing in his head. He would take pain medicine when he woke up if it wouldn’t go away. For now, he was content with healing through sleep.

 

\---

 

                When Keith woke, he simply lay with his eyes shut until Allura called them for breakfast. He opened his eyes, but it took him longer still to muster the energy to leave his bed. He began by inching an arm out of his blankets, only to simply rest it next to his head. It was cold out there.

                He stared at the wall. Then he rolled over, and stared at the ceiling. Then he rolled over and stared at the other wall. He wasn’t sure what he thought of. Perhaps nothing. But whatever nothing he was thinking of consumed his time long enough for a knock to sound on his door. He turned to face the door, but made no move to get up.

                His jaw moved against the leaden weights keeping them shut, and his voice rose above the whispers caught in his throat.

                “Come in.”

                Shiro revealed himself once the _swoosh_ of the doors subsided. The light of the hallway leaked into Keith’s room. It was always brighter in the hallways, letting the simulated daylight affect the rooms the most. It was always when the door opened and the light attacked his retinas with their brightness that Keith would become annoyed by this fact.

                Shiro walked into the room, letting the door slide shut behind him. He sat at the edge of Keith’s bed, letting it dip under his weight. Keith rolled into him a little. He could feel his back against his thighs and knees.

                He tried to kick the blankets away from him. It felt like he was being trapped under stones rather than the cotton he had sunk into most of that week.

                “I know. Breakfast.”

                Shiro let him continue to wrestle with his bed, until he was finally sitting upright. The blanket pooled around him. He could feel it pressing against his lower back, riding his shirt up as its wrinkles and edges caught against his clothing. His hair was a mess, he imagined. His entire head felt heavy. It probably had something to do with that.

                “Is everything alright?” Shiro asked. “You haven’t been in the training room for _days._ Not to mention meals. You come in late, you barely speak if at all --”

                “ ‘S not new.”

                Keith felt the pull of the bed again. It had a stronger gravity than any star he encountered. And he could feel his energy being sapped from him with each moment they spent talking. His words felt too big to push past his lips. His eyelids drooped. He wanted nothing more than to bury his face in his soft pillow and sleep once more.

                “Keith,” Shiro said quietly. “Are you relapsing?”

                He shrugged. “Jus’ kinda figured I was being lazy ‘nd useless.”

                “Stop. In all the years I’ve known you, you’re hardly lazy and you have never, _never_ been useless.”

                Keith thought of all the times they’d gone on missions this past month. He had always been confined to the castle ship, watching Shiro and one of the others tramp through these planets. Most were empty, without a Galran soldier to be found. But Keith had never been there. It was always Lance with his brilliant strategies or Hunk with his quick hands that could fix anything with cogs and gears. Even Pidge went once, needed for her unrivaled hacking. And Shiro was always there because he was their leader, their rock. Not to mention Allura and Coran who remained on the ship with him but didn’t lack any helpfulness and use. They all had a function in the team. Except for him. He was nothing more than a reckless hindrance during missions.

                He had never been useless? He found that hard to believe.

                “Keith.”

                Everyone else was so wonderful and what was he compared to _them?_

                “Keith,” Shiro said again. He placed a hand on his shoulder. Keith looked towards him slowly.

                “Sorry.”

                “I was just saying that you should eat something. Maybe try some training?”

                There was nothing he wanted to do less than leave his bed. The mere thought of standing and walking and _fighting_ was exhausting.

                “‘Kay.”

                Shiro helped him to his feet, and walked behind him as Keith dragged himself towards the kitchen. The sound of Shiro’s footsteps was enough to grate on his nerves. He clenched his teeth and hoped that one of the others would come along and take Shiro away, so he could be alone again.

 

\---

 

                Keith’s absence was nearly palpable. He used his words frugally, and he preferred to lean against walls in the far-reaches of a room but Lance felt his presence as sharply as he would if they were leaning against each other.

                It had been days and the only times Keith had ever shown his face was during meals. Even then, he would speak even less than usual and, worst of all, he wouldn’t laugh at any of the awful jokes Lance had the gall to utter. At first, his silence was the only side-effect of his blues that Lance could perceive; he trained just as hard, ate just as much, and joined them for the usual shenanigans they called “team bonding.” Then he steadily stopped coming to hang out with them. Then he steadily stopped training. Then he picked at his food with all the enthusiasm that Lance had when his homesickness gripped him like a vice.

                The first day Keith acted like this, Lance assumed it was a down day. All of them had had those every once in a while -- becoming a part of Team Voltron had that effect on people, it was a job that came with baggage stacked so high it hit the ceiling. The second day, Lance thought the same. He, Hunk, Coran, and Allura tended to bounce back quickly but he had seen the days it took Shiro or Pidge to recover fully from their troubles. He had seen the bags under their eyes and the exhaustion pressing down their shoulders that spoke of their troubled minds bothering them beyond a mere twenty-four hours. Keith had never had one of these days, one of these _weeks_. Maybe it was because of his lack of a connection to Earth. Maybe it was because he had a fiery passion that burned with all the fury of a forest fire and refused to be doused by a little rain. Or maybe it was because his words never revealed what was weighing him down. Maybe it was because Lance didn’t really know him at all.

                By the third day, Lance began to wonder if this had begun weeks before, when Keith left them in the middle of game night, sounding wearier than he ever had after a hard mission. No one had thought anything of it at the time, even Shiro had not seemed perturbed beyond his usual mild and ever-present paternal concern.  But then, during their next hang-out, Keith was absent and only ever showed up sporadically to any others after that. He had always been there, ready to make fun of Lance for something stupid he had said, or to sit next to him when Lance insisted he was brooding too far away from the rest of them. In those weeks, he missed the feeling of Keith’s back accidentally brushing against his arm as it rested peacefully against the back of the couch.

                Training was a similar story. Keith had _always_ been there. Even if they had been given the day to rest, or had some blessed time to themselves, Keith could usually be found prowling there, fighting off the simulations with all he had as if he wasn’t already strong. Lance would find himself watching sometimes, just to see him gracefully dodge and parry. Just to marvel at how skilled of a fighter, of a _person_ he was. That is, before he would crash into the room and poke fun at Keith’s tireless will.

                This was the sixth day, and Lance was not so sure this was the same as what the rest of them experienced. He stood in the kitchen, leaning against the counter. He had made some hot chocolate, or at least the space equivalent of it, and had been stirring at it for quite some time. He took a sip and tried not to cringe. It was cold, and it _definitely_ didn’t taste the same as cold hot chocolate did on Earth. It had turned bitter like burned coffee. He sighed and placed it on the counter. Maybe he could tie himself over with some more of the breakfast left out. Coran had been insistent on their nutrition that morning and a pile the size of his head still remained. 

                Passed the unappetizing _plop_ of the food goo he placed in a ready bowl, Lance heard footsteps drawing nearer. He looked up, expecting Hunk and Coran, maybe even Pidge. But who stood in front of him made his heart leap in his chest at the sight of him. Keith, wearing rumpled clothing, his hair a mess of tangles, and his eyes looking bruised. Shiro stood beside him, a hand resting against his back.

                “Keith! I worried you’d fallen into the airlock or something where’ve you been?”

                Keith shrugged and shuffled into the room, leaving Shiro behind. “Jus’ been hanging out in my room.”

                “Why don’t we get you some breakfast,” Shiro said and nudged Keith forward gently. That was definitely the comforting dad voice that he just used.

                Lance tried to catch Shiro’s eye, tried to look for an explanation for Keith’s slumped form shuffling to the food goo Lance still stood in front of, or the disappearance or his regular Keith. But Shiro did not look once at him, his eyes trained on Keith’s curved back.

                Before Keith could get any closer, Lance thrust forward his bowl, making the contents inside jiggle around like the hulking, green mass of jello it was.

                “Here, I’ll just make another one.”

                Keith raised his eyes slowly, looking at the bowl then at Lance, before reaching out and cupping the bowl between his two outstretched hands. “Thanks.”

                “No problem,” Lance said with his most charming smile, the one that was lopsided in the most endearing way and placed a dimple in his right cheek.

                Slowly, Keith’s lips twitched upwards until a ghost of a smile lit his features. It was then that Lance’s chest tightened for a multitude of reasons he couldn’t quite place. He knew though, as he watched Keith slouch into a chair and swirl his food, that it all came from _him_.

                When Lance turned back to the counter, he had to grip it as if it were his last saving grace. Suddenly, he felt like he was falling.

 

\---

 

                Keith’s days passed by in a blur of monotony. Shiro woke him up, took him to breakfast, took him to the training room where they worked until Keith was covered in sweat. Then he went back to his room and showered because it was the only way to get Shiro to leave him alone for a little while. Then he would lie in bed until Shiro came to collect him again.

                He was bundled up in his blankets then, dinner on his bedside table. Normally, by this time Shiro would be bringing him along for dinner, but that night he just couldn’t do it. Shiro had come in to find him sobbing on his bed.

                He had been lying on his back, staring at the same ceiling he had been staring at since they had started this. That day’s training flashed before his mind. He had been struggling to keep up in a way he never did. But exhaustion coated his very bones and each swing of his sword made him more frustrated at his own uselessness. He wasn’t fast enough, wasn’t strong enough, wasn’t smart enough. As the others took down simulated enemy after enemy he struggled to keep up with them. Hunk was _strong_ , and what he lacked in stratagem on the battlefield he more than made up for in his strength and his sixth sense when it came to protecting his comrades. Keith couldn’t match his power and, more often than not, he ended up forgetting about everyone else completely. Pidge did not have Hunk’s strength but she was brilliant. She put her tiny Bayard to so many uses. Keith could _never_ match her in a fight that relied more on brain that brawn. Shiro was every ounce the leader Allura guessed him to be. He was perfection in its very element, he could strategize and lead the rest of them through difficult situations and above all he could stay calm when all seemed lost. Keith always let the heat of a fight get to him, always let his anger or frustration or intensity get the better of him, scattering all logic or organization to the wind.  And then there was Lance. He was not a skilled or graceful fighter he was, in fact, a mess but Keith still couldn’t help but feel that he could never measure up to him either. Lance fought with everything he had to reach the skill he had that day, when Keith always skated through life in a worryingly absent way. He could never _feel_ life like Lance did, or live it as boldly. And despite all his clumsiness, all his mistakes, Lance was good at what he did, _especially_ when he wanted to be. Keith could never be that. Lance was too perfect.

                It was then that he snapped. All of it came to a head and even the numbness that he learned to use like a shield was not enough to protect him. He felt stupid and angry that he had let it get to him, that it had reduced him to tears. The turmoil writhing inside of his chest like angry snakes physically hurt and he craved the safety of numbness again.

                It was after he snapped at Shiro, who sat at his bedside and shushed him and held him like a damaged child that he slowed down. He had seen Shiro’s face before the door slid shut, his eyebrows pinched together and his eyes cast down but his face still turned to him. The guilt was yet another heavy rock placed atop his chest. He couldn’t wait to suffocate.

 

\---

 

                At dinner, the night before, Lance had not seen Keith. The seat beside him was heavy with his absence. He had not spoken to Keith since that time they were in the kitchen together and even though it had only been a couple of days since the event, it felt like an eternity to Lance. He wanted to speak to him, he would even take having him by his side because as much as Lance yearned for his presence he knew Keith was not feeling well. He was already a quiet guy; his sickness and obvious exhaustion must amplify that a hundredfold. But Lance wanted to _know_ if that was how it was with Keith, and he wanted to know what was making him look so heartbreakingly unlike himself.

                After dinner, he skipped the Altean movie night they usually held every seven days, and went to Keith’s room. He stood in front of the bedroom door with his fist raised but no courage to knock. That is, until he thought of all the times Keith had frowned into his food goo instead of inhaling it in a matter of seconds, or the times he didn’t smile, or when his eyes glistened worryingly, as if he were seconds from tears.

                At first, no answer was forthcoming and Lance almost left before he heard a soft, “Come in.”

                The door slid open and revealed a bedraggled Keith. He was so wrapped in a blanket Lance couldn’t tell whether he wore any clothes underneath. When Keith saw him, he let the blanket slide off his head.

                “Oh. Lance.” His voice was thick, and he sniffled every other second.

                “Are you sick is that why you’ve been AWOL?” Lance said with a chuckle. He let himself in, the door sliding shut behind him. He wandered over to the bed. When he got closer, Keith looked down and let his bangs fall in front of his face, but not before Lance saw the puffiness of his eyes and the red where the whites of his eyes should be. Lance frowned. “Is everything alright?”

                Keith laughed, airy and with none of the enthusiasm or volume that he normally had. He didn’t answer.

                Lance sat on the very edge of the bed. He almost slid off. “You know, I’m here if you ever need anything. I know I’m not your number one choice, but I would do anything for you.”

                Keith looked up at him then, the blanket sliding off the rest of the way. He had his normal black t-shirt and jeans on underneath. Lance wasn’t surprised in the least. Keith looked down again and away, towards the door.

                “I don’t know what I’m doing here, Lance.”

                Keith’s lip wobbled for a split second before he bit it hard enough that, if Lance listened hard enough, he could hear his teeth creak.

                “What do you mean?” Lance asked. He scooted a little closer, but he didn’t touch.

                Keith sighed. It was stilted and broken up, like his sisters when she was trying to breathe after a long cry. Lance wanted to hold him.

                “You all fit so _perfectly_ as Paladins and I’m-” he paused to breathe in deeply and let it out in one long, shaky exhale. He buried his face in one of his hands. “I feel so useless compared to you guys.”

                Lance’s hand inched across the bed, but he still wouldn’t touch him. Not when he didn’t know what Keith wanted of him. Not when he felt like one wrong move would push him away.

                “Why?”

                Keith seemed to freeze and for a horrifying moment Lance thought he had stepped on a landmine.

                “I don’t know. But I feel so unneeded and fucking worthless.”

                Lance inched forward. “Do you want to know what I think?” He didn’t say another word until Keith looked up and nodded. “You’re _important --_ to this team and to me. You’ve saved us so many times out there, I’ve lost count. And the number of prisoners you’ve freed is astronomical, do you know how many more of them go to _you_ to give their thanks instead of the rest of us, you’re second only to Allura. And we care about you, and value you. _I_ care about you, so, so much.”

                Lance cut himself off and watched Keith’s eyes widen. An innumerable amount of ticks passed by before Keith’s face scrunched together and tears leaked from the corner of his eyes.

                He threw himself at Lance’s chest and buried his face in his shoulder, as he clung to him. “ _Lance.”_

                Lance wrapped him in his arms, pressing his face against matted hair that smelled like sweat and sighed in content. They only moved to lie on their sides and they fell asleep wrapped up in each other’s arms.

                When Lance woke, he traced the curves of Keith’s face until he, too, woke up. Then he coaxed Keith out of bed for a shower and some breakfast. Lance still didn’t enjoy seeing Keith staring into the void instead of eating his breakfast, but he felt he could place his hand over Keith’s now and when he did he was met with the eyes of the one he had been falling for, but tired and worn. But it was still him. It was still his Keith, and hopefully, with time, he could see his Keith become happier again.

                Keith squeezed his hand and took a bite of his food. The corners of his lips twitched upwards and Lance met that with his own smile.    

**Author's Note:**

> [my tumblr](https://memeclains.tumblr.com/) :D


End file.
